Ten and MCN set for July launch, but don’t expect any leaks

If the inside word in TV land is even half-right, the proposed advertising sales joint venture between
Network Ten
and
Foxtel
’s MCN is slated for a launch next July.

Unsurprisingly, Ten and MCN would not touch the subject, other than an official “no comment" from Ten.

Of course, everything is fluid in the TV sector. Take the rapid breakdown of Nine’s hair-raising deal to represent a group of non Foxtel-owned pay TV channels for advertising sales through an acquisition of Ignite Media Brands, the only independent rival to the booming MCN.

As the story goes, Viacom and Fox International Channels (FIC) were just a breath away from signing up to a deal which would have seen Ignite acquired by Nine and the free-to-air broadcaster add a pay TV sales capability to its arsenal.

It would have been beautifully ironic except that a naive leak of the imminent deal by a middle-ranking TV executive tipped Foxtel, MCN and possibly the broader
News Corp
machine into a rapid counteroffensive.

The leak halted FIC’s plans to align with Nine, instead signing up officially with MCN last week and effectively forcing Viacom’s hand. Most now believe Viacom’s pay channels will head to MCN some time next year. Ignite’s future as MCN’s only independent rival is all but busted.

The Foxtel stone-throwers are suggesting that despite the pay TV monopoly’s public complaints about restrictive competition around sports and anti-siphoning laws for free TV, it is increasingly behaving like a bully in its own backyard with independent channel operators on the Foxtel platform. Foxtel’s counter-claims have merit – it has cited the recent deal with the BBC and the strong performances of Discovery Networks’ channels on Foxtel as examples to the contrary.

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However, there is no question the leak about FIC and Viacom all but signing on with Nine and Ignite radically altered the outcome for Nine.

Even MCN’s CEO,
Anthony Fitzgerald
, concedes this when approached by The Australian Financial Review.

“I’d heard the rumours and it certainly encouraged me to accelerate our discussions with Fox International and Viacom," he says. But Fitzgerald denies outright any knowledge that pressure was brought to bear on FIC management further up the News Corp global command.

We’ll never know, but there’s at least one executive in the TV industry right now who is in a world of pain.